


Perihelion

by buppypotato



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Rating May Change, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buppypotato/pseuds/buppypotato
Summary: “I won’t leave you.” She can hear the tinge of panic in her voice and she forces herself to steady it. “Not this time.” Not ever again.





	1. Chapter 1

_“Ahsoka.”_

_The voice (voices?) lance through her with such force that she lurches forward, the grip on her lightsabers momentarily going slack. Her breath escapes her like she has been struck a physical blow. From behind her, she can make out a horrible mechanical wheezing, slow and methodical, below the crackle and whine of electricity spreading like fire around the temple platform._

_She is afraid to turn. Afraid, not to see a remorseless slaughterer, a monster. She has fought monsters. She is afraid to see a ghost. She does turn, though, and the man with Anakin’s face peers back at her from behind the shattered remains of his mask, still smoldering and red from her blade, his visible eye red-rimmed and sunken and undeniably Sith._

_She thinks he says her name again but it is impossible to tell with the way her pulse is pounding in her montrals. She shakes her head in disbelief, unable to look away from that one visible eye. That one, sickeningly familiar eye._

_“Anakin…”_

_For the first time since the War she feels truly and deeply afraid. It flows like ice in her veins. She squares her footing, reaffirms her grip on her sabers as the crumpled form of Vader begins to unfold and rise until he is looming opposite her at his full and impressive height. Somewhere behind her she is vaguely aware of Kanan and Ezra making their way on to their shuttle. Good._

_“I won’t leave you.” She can hear the tinge of panic in her voice and she forces herself to steady it. “Not this time.” Not ever again._

_Ahsoka can see his expression flicker through a range of emotions just as she feels them fully broadcasted and unshielded wash over her in the Force, powerful enough that she has to clench her fists harder around the hilts of her sabers and bow her head. When the wave has passed she is left saturated in only one emotion: a hatred so all-encompassing she nearly loses her footing. And at its source, Vader is staring her down, the golden-red disc of his iris locked on her as he speaks in a voice that is entirely Anakin’s._

_“Then you will die.”_

 

_——————-_

Malachor was dark and silent after the immediacy of danger moments earlier inside the astral temple. Ahsoka’s armor was still smoking lightly, singed in places from the blue flames licking and their heels. She blew out a breath and pushed herself off the ground, twisting to look behind her. The portal was gone, and so was Ezra and any sign of the Emperor.

“May the Force be with you, Ezra Bridger,” she said, and meant it.

She pulled herself to her feet with some effort and tried to get her bearings; she certainly wasn’t where she’d first been pulled in to the portal. Rather, she seemed to be several levels down, at the base of the temple, where a great triangular door yawned into the black expanse beyond.

She noticed Morai perched a little ways away on a large stone, and the little bird took flight and landed on her outstretched arm when she called to her.

“I’m glad you came back with me.”

Morai clacked her beak against Ahsoka’s bracer affectionately before taking off and gliding over to the triangle door to hover near the opening.

“Yes, I feel the pull, too. But..” She craned her head up to the top of the temple, where light from a huge crack in the surface cascaded down, illuminating the upper levels. “I made a promise.”

Morai hooted impatiently and began swooping in and out of the entrance.

Ahsoka rubbed her sore shoulder, the one she had landed on when Vader had pushed her several storeys down during their fight. “I’m sorry, Morai. This is something I have to do.”

The bird finally disappeared in to the cavernous entrance and did not reappear, and Ahsoka was alone. Guilt settled low in her gut. She did not take ignoring Morai’s advice lightly; it was she who had given Ahsoka a new lease on life all those years ago, after all. Her own brush with Darkness had never left her entirely whole again, but it was the sacrifice of the Daughter which restored her lifeforce. Anakin’s face, tear-streaked and ruddy, had been the first thing to come in to focus, and then he’d been dragging her in to his arms and—

Ahsoka began to climb.

 

The temple lifts only operated with two on board and so she had to find another way up. Luckily, enough of the temple had crumbled in Ezra’s attempt to use the holocron that Ahsoka could pick her way up the sides with relative ease, despite her injuries. She knew she faced the very real chance that she would be too late, that Vader would already be gone by the time she reached the platform, but the memory of that sliver of exposed, familiar face kept her climbing, reaching for the next craggy handhold.

At last, she hauled herself up to the platform. The stone was scored by lightsaber blows, and a low of hum of electricity still permeated the air. Vader was nowhere to be seen. The distant shriek of a TIE fighter accelerating out of atmosphere reached her montrals and Ahsoka looked up sharply. Framed by the shattered surface crust, she could just make out a tiny ship rocketing away through a hole punched in the clouds.

“No..”

But there was another sound, a quieter sound, much closer. An awful rasping every few moments, slow and steady. The sound of something dying. Ahsoka suddenly felt sick. _Let it die_ , said a very reasonable voice in her head.

“ _No_.” she said fiercely, louder than before, and rushed forward towards the sound’s source.

Up a flight of stairs and very nearly to the surface, Ahsoka found him. He had stopped to lean against the wall, and Ahsoka suspected that had been quite a while ago. The rasping was louder up close, and sounded both mechanical and horribly wet. Vader turned his head to look at her as she approached, his visible eye fixed on her menacingly.

It somehow managed to take her breath away a second time, despite bracing herself for the sight of him, but she recovered quickly. She raised her hands to him, palms out, to show him her sabers were still clipped to her belt. She circled him on the steps as she did this until she was standing above him, effectively blocking his ascent. His eye tracked her silently, and all the while the broken mechanical ventilator strained.

“If you don’t agree to bring me off-world with you, you will die,” Ahsoka said plainly.

Vader’s brow knit. “And how is it that you came to that conclusion?” His voice sounded weak, like he couldn't get a full breath. 

“Because you are currently at a disadvantage and I have nowhere to be. So either I keep you here,” she hovered her hands over her lightsabers, “until this iron lung of yours gives out completely, or you bring me with you now.”

She glared down at him from the higher ground, the bruises from their battle beginning to bloom like stains on her exposed skin. The sun was setting on this world, and it slanted in through Malachor’s ice-like crust and down the steps to gather in pools at Vader’s feet. He inclined his head, his shoulder sliding against the dark stone as his ventilator shuddered and momentarily lost rhythm. And then his eye was trained on Ahsoka again, pinning her with his gaze.

“Help me to my ship.”


	2. Chapter 2

Up close, Vader was somehow both taller and wider than Ahsoka had anticipated, certainly bigger than she remembered her Master ever having been. Anakin had always been tall and broad, towering over her in her youth and even lording a couple inches over his own former Master, much to Obi-Wan’s annoyance, she suspected. But the creature before her seemed massive in an unnatural way, even half-crumpled as he was against the stone wall.

Ahsoka hesitated by his side but when it seemed he was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to move, she swallowed the hard lump in her throat and ducked her head under his arm, bracing one hand against his side. Death did not rain down upon her; instead, she felt him shift his weight as he began to climb the steps again with her assistance, could actually _hear_ at this range the quiet mechanical whir and click from within his body as joints oscillated and muscles strained.

The going was slow, but they didn’t have far to climb before they were at Malachor’s surface. Close by, in the shadow of the temple debris, Vader’s TIE sat waiting. As they approached the ship, the front viewport swung up and open in a slow arch and Ahsoka felt instantly grateful that she wouldn’t have to haul him up to the hatch on top. This TIE was different from the ones she was familiar with, though similar enough to the inquisitors’ TIEs that she could understand how she had mistaken it for the one streaking out of atmo. It was larger, for one, and the solar array wings bowed out in a wide arch. She imagined the inner workings were similarly custom.

When they reached the front hatch, Vader stopped and unhooked his arm from around Ahsoka’s shoulders, dipping his helmet towards the ship and gesturing for her to enter first. Ahsoka looked over her shoulder at the horizon; there was no other ship coming for her, and surely nothing salvageable below the surface. And.

And she had made a promise.

She climbed on board, into the cramped space behind the pilot’s seat. TIEs were not built for more than one and this one was no exception, but she found space enough to hunch against the back panel. Vader had already managed to drag himself inside by the time she turned around, and was settling heavily into the pilot’s seat. The front hatch rotated down, locking into place with click that reverberated with finality. And then it was just them, silent but for the dragging suck of air issuing from Vader’s ventilator at steady intervals.

Ahsoka wondered if maybe this was when he would kill her. Now that he was safely in his ship, now that she was useless to him; but it made little sense for him to usher her on board just to spill her blood. She forced herself to slow her breathing, subconsciously calling upon meditation techniques she’d learned at the Jedi temple decades ago.

“Where are w-” but her voice caught in her throat like dust when she realized that Vader was reaching up, hooking his fingers around the rim of his helmet and bowing his head as he pulled it off. The back of his head, ghostly pale and twisted with scars, came in to view and before Ahsoka could begin to process what she was seeing he was pulling off the damaged faceplate and setting that aside as well. He pulled what looked like a modified oxygen mask down from its place clipped to the side panel of the cabin and strapped it over what was left of his tattered ears, connecting it to the lower half of the ventilator still integrated with the suit.

It had happened so fast it was all Ahsoka could do to not sink to the floor in shock. From her vantage point behind and to the side of the pilot’s chair she could see every divot and crag on his hairless scalp, how the scar tissue bunched and pulled along his jaw where it disappeared into the neckline of his suit. But his profile was the same. The cheekbones, the swooped nose, the heavy brow. There was no hair growing above his eyes but in the low sunlight filtering in through the transparisteel viewport she could clearly see eyelashes fanning out against his cheeks as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply from the mask.

“Mustafar,” he said, at length. The voice was no longer Anakin’s, but the modified rumble of his vocoder. Ahsoka had forgotten she’d even begun to ask a question. Vader began the prep for takeoff while Ahsoka shrank against the far wall, unable to take her eyes off the man in the cockpit. She realized she was seeing something few probably had. Maybe nobody.

 _What_ happened _to you?_

The ship took to the air and within seconds they were amongst the stars. She hadn’t even felt them breaking through atmo; of course, she reminded herself. She was flying with the best pilot in the galaxy again. Vader punched in coordinates and then they were making the jump to lightspeed. He _would_ have his TIE outfitted with a hyperdrive.

Ahsoka cleared her throat once they were gliding smoothly through the blue glow of hyperspace. “Why Mustafar?” She was familiar enough with the planet from studying readouts, though she’d never set foot there herself, nor had any desire to. It was home mostly to mining colonies owned by the Techno Union, and not much else.

“I have a base there. I need to make repairs.”

Repairs. Her eyes trailed down what she could see of his jawline to where it disappeared behind the oxygen mask, down the thick, shiny collar and broad shoulder. She thought of the computer panel built in to his chest, not visible to her at this angle but still alarming the longer she dwelled on it.

The image of Anakin, as she had once known him, crept unbidden in to her mind. She could picture exactly how he would sit, bent over his mechno-arm with a lamp trained down on his work, his tools spilled out on the workbench around him. She remembered sitting on the edge of his bed while he lubricated the tiny gears, tightened a gear here, realigned a prosthetic tendon.

He had clicked the panel on his forearm back into place when he was satisfied and spun in his chair to face her, shaking his hair out of his eyes and waggling his metal fingers obnoxiously close to her face.

“See, Snips? Just needed some repairs.”

She shoved his hand out of the way. “Okay okay, let’s _go_!”

Ahsoka snapped back to the present when an emotion she couldn't place brushed against her mind, and she realized she had been inadvertently broadcasting her feelings through the Force. But she wasn’t just transmitting: she was receiving. Their old Force Bond, dark and quiet for so many years, shuddered weakly between them.

Ahsoka inhaled sharply and flattened against the back panel of the cabin. She slammed her defenses up. Neither of them had ever been particularly good at shielding their feelings in Force, as Obi-wan had often liked to remind them, but Vader now was a sea of emotions, buffeting at her senses. And under at all, the thrum of deep physical pain.

But there had been something else, too.

Vader was watching her from the corner of his eye, the gold of his iris appearing almost to glow in the eerie blue light of hyperspace. She could just make out the old scar that Ventress had given him that ran from above his brow down to his cheekbone, though it was faded and soft-looking in a way his new scars weren’t.

Ahsoka found her voice again, though it sounded raw in the quiet cabin. “And will you kill me after?”

Vader turned his attention back out the viewport. “The Emperor will decide what becomes of you.”

The remainder of the trip passed in silence. Ahsoka eventually sank to the cabin floor to spare her aching joints. She brought out the small medkit she kept holstered on her belt and set about patching the handful of abrasions still left stinging after their encounter on Malachor. She knew she was probably one of the only people to have come away from a fight with the Sith lord in one piece, and the irony that it was his own training that had saved her was not lost on her.

She was beginning to think she might be trapped forever in this sphere with the husk of a man she used to know when the TIE’s hull rattled and the streaks of blue and white outside the front viewport were replaced by points of light again. Ahead of them, Mustafar hung suspended like a globe of glowing coal against the backdrop of its host gas giant.

Ahsoka pulled herself up from the floor as Vader piloted them down through a thick layer of smoggy atmosphere. The clouds parted and the volcanic landscape of Mustafar’s surface came in to view. Vader guided the ship down to follow the twisted line of lava seeping to the surface in a slow-moving stream, pushing at the crust like a scab. Up ahead, what looked like a natural volcanic dam rose out of the earth, and from its center thrust up like a black shard of glass grew what Ahsoka could only describe as a castle.

A tiny part of her, the part that had earned her her padawan nickname, wanted to make a glib comment about how he always had had a flair for the dramatic, but she bit down on it.

Vader circled around back to where a landing pad was visible jutting out from between the obsidian shoulder blades of the structure and effortlessly landed the starfighter. Ahsoka watched him unstrap the oxygen mask and replace his damaged one over his face and head as the front viewport swung open. The horrible death-rattle of his breathing began again, but she didn’t have time to think on it before the choking air of Mustafar’s surface was flooding her lungs.

With some effort, Vader, stepped out onto the landing pad, and then turned and offered her an outstretched hand. Ahsoka, her shirt collar pulled up over her mouth and nose, stared at it incredulously before climbing out around him, keeping her distance.

If he was offended, he showed no sign of it.

“This way,” he said, and turned to stride towards the castle, his cape swirling behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

The doors shut behind her and Ahsoka could breathe again. As her eyes adjusted, she realized they were inside a small hangar bay, though it appeared to be mostly empty. A handful of droids puttered around the perimeter. Vader’s pace was slowing as they made their way through the center towards another set of doors at the far end of the bay. His limp seemed to worsen with every step.

Ahsoka followed from a cautious distance, doing her best to map out her surroundings as he led her through a series of hallways. She nearly stepped on his cape before she had realized he had stopped and was leaning against the wall again. He began to slump, and she had a moment of panic where she ran through what little healing knowledge she’d learned at the Temple all those years ago, but he raised a hand and a nearby door slid open.

The room beyond was cavernous and dark but for the glow of a large bacta tank in its center. Ahsoka didn’t have time to think on it before the Force rattled around them and something whizzed from inside, past her head and into Vader’s outstretched hand. He sank the rest of the way onto the floor just as his ventilator gave one last mechanical heave and then sputtered to a halt.

Ahsoka realized that he was struggling weakly to pull the helmet off, and she dove to his side, hooking her fingers on either side of the lip and tugging until it came away. She pulled the face-plate off, smoking slightly where it seemed to have shorted out entirely, and then there he was, with truly nothing between them now, face to face.

She could see now that the thing in his hand was a portable ventilator, similar to the one in his ship, and he was strapping it over his mouth and nose with shaking hands. His eyes fell closed in relief when the device clicked on, his shoulders sagging incrementally.

Ahsoka rolled back on her heels from her position squatting beside him, taking in the sight of him. He was much less impressive in a heap on the floor like this, though he still radiated a dangerous energy that chilled her. He looked like an injured beast, cornered but still with more than enough fight to kill anyone who challenged him. One leg was outstretched near her and for the first time she noticed that she had gotten another hit in on Malachor: the knee of his suit was torn and below it she could see a notch carved into the servos in his durasteel leg. Well, that accounted for the limp.

His chest was rising and falling in more even intervals now. Ahsoka peered guardedly at the blinking panel there. How much of this man was still flesh and blood?

She felt his gaze before she saw it. When she looked up his eyes were searching her face, two golden discs gleaming in the ridiculous levels of dimly-lit he seemed to prefer to keep this place. Her breath hitched in her throat. From the front she could see just how deep set his eyes had become against his deathly pale skin. He looked like hadn’t slept in.. years.

His face twisted in an expression she couldn’t interpret, but then it was gone and he was getting to his feet again. She rose with him and followed him in to the room with the bacta tank. Lights flickered on against the far wall, illuminating a full work bench littered with parts and a couple of powered-down droids, as well as a large, durasteel table and what looked like a lot of medical equipment. The whole place looked like an engineer’s lab crossed with a hospital room.

Ahsoka circled the bacta tank in the center of the room as Vader got to work replacing the inner-workings of his mask. She ran her hand against the cool glass, her fingers leaving traces in the condensation. The implications were enormous. How many days had he floated in this tank over the years? How much of him was left?

Eventually a protocol droid brought her food, which she picked at, and water, which she gulped down greedily. She noticed Vader did not eat. A droid was hovering near his knee with a series of instruments, sparks flying every so often as it worked on his damaged prosthetic.

She realized there was nothing keeping her here. She had seen no guards on their way in; no sentients at all, in fact. The castle buzzed with energy in the Force but all of it seemed to seep up from the very planet itself and not from anyone inside it. She suspected if she were to get up and leave, Vader would not try and stop her.

As she was turning the idea over in her mind, a coldness began to bleed in to her mind. She and Vader looked up as one as they both sensed it. An approaching presence.

Vader promptly set down his tools and replaced the mask and helmet over his face. The bottom half had been repaired, but the shattered red lens was still missing, leaving a window open over his eye.

“It would be wise for you to stay here,” he rumbled in the deep, unfamiliar voice of the vocoder as he rose from his work bench and swept past the puttering droid. Ahsoka watched him exit the room, the door whooshing shut behind him. She turned to look at the little droid who had been operating on his leg.

“What do you think?”

The droid beeped at her aggressively in binary.

“Yeah, well.” She blew out a breath. “I was never very good at following his instructions even when he was my Master.”

 

——————-

 

Ahsoka ducked in to the hangar like a shadow. At the far end, the bay doors were ajar and a ship she didn’t recognize was docked. The hot, acrid air of Mustafar’s surface was billowing in. Several figures were gathered at the base of the ship’s ramp and she slipped along the wall for a better look. The closer she got, the more the chill settled in her gut.

She paused behind a speeder, crouching low. She could see them now: Vader, as well as the source of the disturbance, the Emperor himself, flanked by two Imperial guards cloaked in crimson. Her hand went to her singed boot, where the Emperor’s flames had licked at her heels earlier that same day, albeit years in the future and not in this realm and—

It hurt a bit to think about.

She was far enough away that she couldn't hear what they were saying. Vader was kneeling at his Master’s feet, his head bowed. A hood was pulled low over the Emperor’s face, but she thought he was talking. Why was he here? Why wouldn’t a holotransmission have sufficed?

Vader lifted his head. He seemed to be responding when the Emperor raised both gnarled, white hands let forth from them a stream of blue lightning that engulfed Vader entirely.

Like a wire running between them, Ahsoka had only a second to be horrified before she felt his pain as her own, thundering along the fragments of their Force bond. She had only the briefest moment of clarity, enough to throw her shields up in the Force, and then she was panting and sweating, doubled over on the floor of the hangar.

She wrenched her gaze up. Lightning was still flowing through Vader’s writhing body. She could see it streaming along his limbs, pouring over his helmet, the suit acting as a conduit. Smoke was beginning to curl out from his joints.

Mercifully, the attack ended and the onslaught on her defenses with it. Vader was crouched, one hand clutching his chest, while the Emperor loomed above him, speaking again. He took a step forward and raised his hands again, but before he could begin another assault, Ahsoka found herself launching across the hangar floor towards them, lightsabers drawn and blazing.

She caught the lightning just as it left the Emperor’s hands, redirecting it with her blades into the floor. Her boots skidded as she slid to a halt between them. The Imperial guards immediately twisted in to defensive stances, their lances trained on her, but the Emperor, she realized, was cackling. Unworried. From behind her, the smell of burnt flesh reached her nostrils.

This had to have been the most foolish thing she’d ever done.

“The woman of the hour. I was wondering when you would make an appearance. You are of no use to us hiding in a corner.”

Of course he had known she was there. Color rose in her lekku. She reflexively switched to reverse Shien grip.

The Emperor waved away the two guards, who returned to standing impassively to either side.

“You’ve made quite an impression on my apprentice,” he continued. “Not many could strike a blow to him as you have.” He tilted his head a fraction. “A pity you didn’t finish the job.”

Ahsoka’s lip curled. “I’d sooner kill the man pulling the strings.”

The Emperor threw his head back and laughed, and it was a horrible sound. “You were right, Lord Vader. Truly not a Jedi at all. Excellent, excellent.”

With a snarl, Ahsoka lunged, sweeping with first her left and then right saber, but before she could even make contact her feet were swept out from under her by an invisible force and she was sailing backwards. She landed hard but was readying to use the momentum to spin herself back up when she heard Vader behind her.

“ _Ahsoka_.”

She turned at his voice, caught off guard. That one little window was still open over his right eye, and his expression was one of panic.

And then came pain so blinding she wondered how she was still conscious. It didn’t seem fair, or even logical. Distantly she heard someone screaming. She wondered if it was her. The electricity buckled her knees and she collapsed to the floor, seizing. Her lightsabers rolled from her spasming grasp. The world was flickering blue and white.

The last thing she remembered before darkness blessedly took her was staring up in to Vader’s face as he watched her writhe on the floor. His one eye, fixed on her. Blue.


	4. Chapter 4

Consciousness returned to Ahsoka in increments.  First, she was aware of the tangle of her limbs against the surface she was lying on. They pulsed with the dull ache of having slept on them wrong. She rolled onto her back and felt the thin mattress below her give under her weight. With her eyes slotted open, the room slowly came in to focus. Four walls, a low ceiling. Glossy black like the rest of this damned place. She turned her head; there was a ‘fresher just off the main room, and a low table beside the cot with a glass of water and an approximation of breakfast rations on it.

With a start, she patted her hips instinctively; her lightsabers were clipped to her belt there. Someone had replaced them while she was unconscious.

Groaning quietly, she rolled herself upright and padded around the small space. It was clearly a prison cell, modified slightly for her comfort. She was certain Vader’s usual guests were not afforded a cot with clean sheets, nor access to a sonic shower. The main door looked heavy, but when she pressed on it it swung outwards on creaking hinges.

She poked her head out. The hallway outside was lined with identical doors, but she didn’t sense any sentients nearby. She momentarily balked when a cleaning droid came humming around a corner, but it did not pause in its predetermined path, nor seem to notice her at all.

The memory of the night before flooded back to her. How could she have been so foolish… the Emperor’s laughter. The smell of burning flesh. Anakin... had it just been the reflection of the bright blue bolts of lightning playing off his face? She exhaled slowly, centering herself, and extended her awareness outwards. The castle seemed to breathe around her, a living thing. Somewhere above her, she could feel him.

She made her way through the passageways that snaked through the bowels of the castle until she was up in an area she recognized. A quick pit stop in the hangar: no sign of the Emperor’s ship. Good.  With her focus back on Vader, she used his signature in the force like a beacon to home in on him. It brought her back along yesterday’s path, to the room with the bacta tank and the tools. The door was unlocked, and she palmed the keypad open.

Ahsoka stifled a gasp. In the middle of the room, suspended in the tank floated a figure, ghostly white. Or.. most of one. His legs stopped abruptly just above the knee, his arms similarly terminating in stumps at different lengths. His exposed skin was mottled with fresh burns, now healing in the bacta but stretched over a patchwork of heavy scars. Ridges and puckers of thick white scar tissue crisscrossed his body. In the center of his broad chest bits of metal ran the length of his sternum. Above the oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose, his eyes were closed.

Ahsoka approached the tank in silent horror, taking in the grisly truth. Her knees felt weak. _What in the galaxy had happened to this man?_ She finally tore her gaze away and forced herself to look around the room instead. She found his prosthetic limbs nearby, lying in a neat row on the workbench. Three of them were unfamiliar to her, made of unremarkable silver durasteel, but the fourth she knew well. It was the right arm, beginning just above the elbow joint, and it was crafted in elegant black and gold with more delicate inner-workings than its counterparts. It looked old now, scuffed in places and not as shiny as it had once been.

She moved past the table to a stand where the suit was hanging open like the cracked carapace of a huge shiny beetle. Wires and filaments spilled out of the chest cavity. The computer panel on the front was offline, the lights blank. She cautiously ran her fingers over the plate before examining the suit in more detail, investigating the inner workings. The wiring, the mechanisms, even the material of the tabard and tunic itself, it was all..

“Junk. This is all outdated junk,” she murmured to herself, squinting at the armorweave.

There was an immediate pressure on her throat, like someone pressing their thumb firmly against her voicebox. Not enough to choke her but, but hard enough that she sucked in a breath and slapped a hand to her throat in surprise. The sensation was gone as soon as it had arrived.

She whirled on the bacta tank. Vader was staring at her from within, his golden eyes the only points of color in the room. She swallowed and stepped back from the suit, her hand still massaging her throat. A man with a lightsaber, she knew how to handle. The threat of.. _this_.. was something she wasn’t sure how to approach.

As she watched, his eyes flickered down to a nearby panel of dials and levers. He raised one stump of an arm a fraction and the largest lever activated. The liquid in the tank began to descend, and the contraption keeping him suspended simultaneously began lowering his body until he was seated on a block on the tank’s floor. As the last of the bacta drained away, the transparisteel tank itself retreated into the floor, leaving Vader sitting, dripping and limbless, in the center of the room like a strange statue on a plinth.

She heard a chastising beep from behind her and Ahsoka had to sidestep to get out of the way of a small droid. It was the same one from earlier who had been repairing his knee, and it was carrying all four of his prosthetic limbs above its head as it rolled past. She followed its path with her eyes as it made a beeline towards its master and began the process of attaching his limbs. Vader was sitting forward, his head bowed, as his mobility was restored. No one else would have noticed the faintest of winces as the nerves were hooked up to the inner-workings of the mechnolimbs, but Ahsoka would have felt his pain keenly even if she hadn’t been able to sense it in the Force.

He flexed his fingers experimentally once the attachments were made and the droid was rolling away again, and then finally stood and took slow steps over to where the suit was hanging. He threw her an accusatory glance.

“I didn’t do anything to it,” she said defensively.

He studied her face for a moment, and then reached for a black body suit that had been folded nearby.

“Oh.. do you want privacy?” she asked, abruptly aware that he was nude except for a pair of undershorts. It suddenly seemed such a ridiculous, normal thing to ask after seeing so much of his damaged body. She stared at the floor.

“It doesn’t matter.” The ventilator still strapped around his nose and mouth rumbled. He pulled the bodyglove on slowly as his body reacclimated itself to his limbs. When he stepped back into the embrace of the full armored suit, the retinue of mech droids re-emerged and began strapping him in to place, wiring him up, sealing him in. The mask was last. It seemed overnight the damaged faceplate has been replaced. Good as new.

Ahsoka sank onto a nearby bench. Any sense of vulnerability she had sensed from him was clouded now.

“The Emperor. He’s gone..”

“Yes,” he said, adjusting his gloves.

“Why didn’t he kill me?”

“He believes you may be of use to us. He believes you may know the location of other Jedi.”

“You have to know I wouldn’t help him even if it killed me.”

“You came here with me.”

“Anakin…”

Vader looked up sharply and she felt a ringing danger tighten her chest. She pushed it aside.

“That suit… you and I both know it’s doing you more harm than good. You’re a brilliant mind, you know he keeps you in it to control you.”

Vader took one stalking step towards her. His uncanny ability to _loom_ was never unimpressive.

“This suit _keeps me alive_.”

“What if you didn’t need it anymore?” she said breathlessly, leaning back as he approached.

“Do you think I have never considered that? It is impossible.”

“That’s not true,” she slipped off the bench to stand her ground in front of his advancing form. “I know what it’s doing to you. I can feel your pain, your discomfort. He has fed you the lie that you need him to survive and it’s _not true_.”

He stepped in to her personal space, shaking a finger in her face. “That’s enough. I’ve done you the courtesy of sparing your life thus far. Pray that my generosity extends long enough for you to leave this room.”

She grasped his wrist in one hand and held it, her heart pounding against her ribcage. He visibly recoiled, startled to be touched. “I am asking you to trust me as you once did. It’s clear you aren’t keeping me here; I will make ready to leave. If you come to your senses, you’ll find me before then.”

She held him a beat longer before turning and leaving the room. Death did not follow her.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead, actually

A converted star courier, shiny black like most of the ships there, was parked near the entrance of the hangar. It was flashier than what she preferred, but it looked fast and it had fire power, and Ahsoka could appreciate both. To her relief, the loading ramp lowered when she thumbed the standard opening code in to the keypad.

The interior was similarly dark, but roomy. To the left, the cockpit with pilot and co-pilot’s chairs and a vast array of buttons and knobs glowing in the dim light. To the right, a wide hallway with plenty of room for cargo storage, and further on, small living quarters: a common area with a table bolted to the floor, a bunk built in to the wall, and a door leading to a fresher. Ahsoka made her way into the cockpit and cast around for familiarity. The courier was heavily modified from the more familiar Republic ships she was used to but she could certainly fly it.

She reclined in the pilot’s chair and stared blankly out the windshield towards the bay doors. They were ajar, and Mustafar’s choking air billowed in in thick clouds, illuminated by the soft glow of the molten planet’s churning insides beyond. She pointedly left the boarding ramp down; she could smell brimstone filling her nostrils as it crept in to the cabin.

 _If I had any sense at all,_ she thought, _I would have left already._ She pinched the bridge of her nose. _No, if I had any sense I wouldn’t have come in the first place._

The minutes ticked by.  Finally, she shook her head and began launch initiation. The cruiser rattled, the boarding ramp sliding back into place and the engines roaring to life. She punched in coordinates for Lothal, her mouth a thin line. She still had to find Ezra, there was still a Rebellion in its infancy that needed her, despite everything that had transpired.

The engines flared as Ahsoka nudged the ship in to the air and in to a graceful arc towards the hangar doors. Suddenly, the engines groaned in protest and the ship gave a violent shudder as if it had hit an invisible wall.  Ahsoka yelped in surprise and clutched the steering yolk, struggling to regain control. Against her will, the ship began to sink, slowly, deliberately. A moment later and she was grounded again, and the sound of the boarding ramp descending had her spinning from the chair to her feet, her hands hovering over the hilts of her sabers.

Vader’s heavy boots clunked up the ramp. The sound of his mechanical, slow breathing preceded him as turned the corner and filled the entire entryway to the cockpit.

Ahsoka squared her shoulders. She felt sweat bead on her brow. Was he here to drag her off to a dungeon to torture for information? Or to finally end it all, here and now? Or,

“What you said earlier. Elaborate.”

Vader’s synthetic voice filled every inch of the small cockpit in a way that didn’t leave any air for Ahsoka to breathe. She stared at him, waiting for her brain to catch up to the words ringing in her montrals.

“What I said-“

“That I don’t need this suit.” He inclined his head very slightly as he spoke.

She let out a huff of air she hadn’t known she’d been holding, almost a laugh of disbelief, and he immediately stiffened in response, seeming to grow even taller if possible. She held up her hands placatingly, felt the sweat on her brow trickle down her temple.

“I have a contact on Kamino,” she said in a rushed voice.

“What exactly are you suggesting.”

“Well, it’s true I don’t know the extent of your injuries, but the Kaminoans have been using their cloning technology to fast-grow replacement organs for decades now.” _You have to have known this,_ she didn’t add. Vader folded his arms across his broad chest and said nothing so she continued.

“The cloning facility that the Republic used during the War has been under Imperial jurisdiction for years, of course, but there’s no reason you couldn’t get in.”

“This body is damaged beyond repair,” Vader rumbled.

“If the Kaminoans can create a man, they can certainly rebuild one.”

“And then what? You expect me to join your cause, to live out the fantasy that the past sixteen years never happened? You are foolish to wish for the impossible.”

Ahsoka’s heart gave a painful, lurching ache. _Is_ that what she was doing here? Attempting to recreate the past? She shoved the thought aside.

“Do you want my help or not?” She put one fist on her hip, looking not unlike the snippy padawan she had once been. Vader regarded her through the crimson lenses of his mask, the steady rhythm of his ventilator filling the cabin.

“The Emperor will not be pleased.”

“No,” she agreed, her gaze flitting where he knew his eyes were. “But you will be.. more powerful for it.”

He made a quiet sort of humming noise, his fingers flexing on his biceps. He strode forward as if he had made a decision.

“I will pilot.”

The faintest trace of what felt like a smile tugged at the corner of Ahsoka’s mouth as she stood aside and let him take her place at the front of the cockpit. She slid into the copilot’s chair as he prepped for launch a second time, watching him from the corner of her eye. Kamino was at least a day’s flight through hyperspace from here. That was a long time to be in closed space with a man who had every motive and means to kill her on the spot, but the last few days had been nothing if not.. anomolous.

The ship lifted smoothly and accelerated out of the hangar. Ahsoka watched the spike of Vader’s castle shrink in size on the scanner in front of her as Vader piloted the ship away along the planet’s surface before he arced it up and out of atmo.

_——————-_

 " _And this is the one Sebulba raced.”_

 _“I_ know _, you’ve showed me these like ten times!” Ahsoka laughs and shoves the model podracer out of her face. “Didn’t that guy try to_ kill _you? Why do you have a model of his racer?”_

_“I can still respect the guy,” Anakin leans back in his seat, rotating the model in his hands, his fingers running fondly over the orange paint. “He didn’t always play fair, but,” he grins mischievously at Ahsoka. “..neither do you and I. At least when it comes to the Seppies.”_

_Ahsoka levels a look at him. “I’m not sure that’s the same thing.” She plops her boots into the space beside Anakin’s legs across from her own chair. “Does Obi-wan know you have a bunch of toys stashed in your quarters here?”_

_“What Obi-wan doesn’t know could fill--_ excuse me!! Toys?!” _he cuts himself off, sputtering with indignation. Ahsoka laughs over him, motioning to the array of intricately detailed models ships, racers and speeders spread around their shared quarters on the Resolute._

_“Alright alright, extremely educational and historically important models! For adults,” she corrects, her voice a little rough from laughing._

_“Hm!” Anakin raises his chin at her, but his facade is cracking. He affectionately bumps his knee against the toe of her boot. Ahsoka slumps further in to her chair opposite him, leaning her head in the cup of her hand, and Anakin goes back to fixing the Sebulba model where part of the split-X engines has come loose. A pleasant, comfortable silence falls, and their force bond thrums between them._

_After a while, Ahsoka speaks again. “Why do you like flying so much?”_

_Anakin exhales through his nose as he mulls it over, his eyes still on his work. “I think I need to go fast,” he says after a moment. His expression tightens. “I was stuck in one place for so long. You know, as a kid.”_

_Ahsoka lifts her head. Anakin rarely speaks of his past._

_“I guess,” he continues, finally looking up at her, “I’m just always trying to reach escape velocity.”_


End file.
